One of my issues with Metacritic (or Rotten Tomatoes) that it reduces ALL reviews to the same numerical weight. So a review from Variety or the N.Y. Times counts as much as a review from some obscure website? Not in my book. Also, the score will vary on how many reviews Metacritic collects. As you point out, the Metacritic score for ''A Christmas Story Live!'' got 61, barely getting a ''generally favorable'' rating. And yet missing in Metacritic's compilation (of 11 reviews) is Jeremy Gerard's pan at Deadline.com (''180-minute slog''), which clearly would've driven its rating lower.
But another issue is who rates or scores these reviews?
''At three hours, it kind of felt like the Christmas parable that would never end. Though the music is written by Broadway’s golden team of Benj Pasek & Justin Paul (Dear Evan Hansen), the score never really rises above feeling like a passably generic theme-park musical.''
That's from Caroline Siede's review from the A.V. Club, which was clearly mixed, but labeled as ''positive.''
And Hank Stuever's withering pan from the Washington Post, calling the show ''tedious'' and ''overblown,'' was scored as simply ''mixed.'' |
